


Chess Does Not Work That Way

by Feriku



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Awkwardness, Chess, Eraqus makes up his own chess rules, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Socially Awkward Xehanort, but it depends on how tightly fastened your shipper goggles are, has this ship sailed??, kinda like canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 08:52:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17804933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feriku/pseuds/Feriku
Summary: Xehanort is too good at chess to find a challenge in it anymore, at least until he meets a boy who makes up new rules every time he plays.(Just a silly story to affectionately poke fun at Eraqus's chess strategies.)





	Chess Does Not Work That Way

Xehanort had always been good at chess.

Too good, in fact.

As a child on Destiny Islands, he ran out of opponents his own age, and none of the adults he challenged could beat him either. When he reached Scala Ad Caelum, he thought it would finally change, but no matter who he challenged to a game, he always seemed to win.

He _liked_ winning… but when there was no challenge, there was hardly any fun left in it.

“Hey, Xehanort?”

The quiet voice pulled him from his frustrated thoughts as he walked back to his room. He turned. Eraqus stood looking at him, the other Keyblade wielder’s face as cheerful and guileless as ever. He normally greeted Xehanort whenever they crossed paths, and they’d played one game of chess together, but this was the first time he’d ever initiated a conversation.

A bit surprised—most people in general didn’t initiate conversations with him—Xehanort waited to see what his fellow trainee had to say.

“Can we play chess again sometime?” Eraqus asked.

Xehanort snorted. “I don’t do rematches.”

“Come on, please?”

“No.”

Eraqus folded his arms. “You’re just scared you’ll lose to me.”

“I am not,” Xehanort said. “I’m not afraid of losing to anyone.”

The other boy gave him a cheeky grin. “Prove it.”

“Fine. We’re playing chess this afternoon.”

#

Xehanort met Eraqus in the same place they’d played chess the first time, a quiet spot where they could sit alongside the window. He preferred to be by the window whenever possible, to remind himself that the whole World was his to explore now. He wasn’t trapped any longer.

Eraqus hummed happily as he put his silver pieces on the chessboard. Didn’t he remember how he’d been beaten in their first game? He was insufferably cheerful.

Shaking his head, Xehanort lined up his gold pieces on the other side.

“Oh—almost forgot my chariots!” Eraqus reached into his pocket and pulled out two more silver pieces, which he placed in front of his pawns.

Xehanort stared at him. “There is no chess piece called a chariot.”

“Sure there is.” Eraqus tapped the pieces he’d added.

“I _know_ how to play chess, Eraqus. Each player has a king, a queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns.”

“Right! And two chariots.”

Xehanort folded his arms. “I don’t have any chariots.”

“That’s not my fault. I didn’t take them.”

He stared at Eraqus for a long time, and Eraqus looked back with such an innocent expression that Xehanort wasn’t entirely sure what to do. Finally, he shrugged. If Eraqus wanted to play with extra pieces, so be it.

“What moves can chariots make?”

“They’re like rooks,” Eraqus said, “except they can go through other pieces.”

Xehanort rubbed his forehead. “Fine. Let’s get started.”

This should be interesting.

#

After an hour of playing, Xehanort won. Eraqus’s extra pieces had put a wrinkle in his usual strategies, which made it a much longer and more challenging game than he was used to. Nevertheless, he still proved victorious in the end.

“That was fun,” Eraqus said as he put his pieces away. “Do you want to play again sometime?”

Xehanort blinked, and the other boy smiled at him. Losing didn’t seem to bother him at all. Of course, there wasn’t much point in accepting a third challenge, since Xehanort had already proven he could beat Eraqus a second time…

…but he’d had _fun_ playing chess for the first time in years.

“How about tomorrow?” he asked.

#

Xehanort had almost won. Eraqus was rapidly running low on pieces, and although he’d done a good job of keeping his king protected, it wouldn’t last forever. Once he made his next move, Xehanort would start to close in.

His queen was the best target, but perhaps that bishop—

Strategizing came to an abrupt end as Eraqus picked up one of the gold pawns he’d captured and set it on his side of the board.

“What are you doing?” Xehanort asked. “That’s my piece.”

Eraqus shook his head. “Not anymore. Your piece has decided to switch sides.”

“Chess does not work that way!”

“Sure it does,” Eraqus said. “This piece is mine. I took it.”

“You captured it. That means it can’t be used in the game anymore.”

“It’s been captured, not killed.” Eraqus gave him a critical look. “Have you been killing my chess pieces, Xehanort?”

He didn’t even know how to answer that.

Eraqus shrugged. “Well, I don’t know what you’ve been doing with the pieces you capture, but the pieces I’ve captured are well-treated prisoners who have agreed to change sides.”

Xehanort stared at him for a long time, then rolled his eyes and grabbed a silver bishop he’d claimed from Eraqus earlier. He slammed it down onto the chess board. “Some of your pieces aren’t so loyal either.”

Eraqus beamed. “See? Now you’re getting into the spirit of this game!”

#

“Hey, Xehanort?”

“…What?”

“Don’t you think our chessboard is a little… boring?”

“It’s a chessboard.”

“Yeah, but wouldn’t it be more interesting if it had raised platforms and different tiers?”

“…Sure.”

“Great! I’ll bring it tomorrow.”

#

It became a daily routine.

Every day, whenever they had free time between studying and training, Xehanort met up with Eraqus in the same spot to play a game of chess. And every time, he had literally no idea what Eraqus might do.

Yet despite how annoying this was—and Eraqus didn’t seem to realize he was doing anything annoying, which was the most annoying part of all—Xehanort never failed to miss a match. He even caught himself looking forward to it on more than one occasion.

He scowled across the chessboard while the other boy considered his next move. It wasn’t fair that Eraqus had gotten such a hold on his heart just by being a lunatic at chess. They never had a nice normal game of a chess, no. And it wasn’t like Eraqus ever asked to do anything else with him. If they weren’t training, they were playing chess, and yet he just kept coming back like he’d been caught in some sort of trap.

Eraqus finally moved his piece. In his distraction, Xehanort had let him get close enough to capture his queen, which put his king in danger. The other boy claimed the piece with his usual infuriatingly innocent smile. “Check.”

Enough was enough.

Xehanort snatched the captured queen back from Eraqus. “Unfortunately, this piece is actually a very powerful sorcerer who just sent a magical inferno down upon your entire army, wiping them out and leaving your king completely helpless!” He knocked all of the silver pieces off the board. “Check _mate._ ”

He bent to gather the pieces he’d knocked to the floor, and his fury faded. Nevertheless, as he straightened, he prepared to tell Eraqus exactly what he thought of him when the other boy complained about his tactic.

But Eraqus didn’t look angry. Instead, he was writing something down in a journal. “What did you say, a magical inferno?” He closed his journal and grinned. “That was really cool, Xehanort.”

Xehanort threw his hands in the air. “Argh, you’re so weird! Of course you’d _like_ it.” Resigned to being stuck with Eraqus and his ludicrous chess games forever, he started to put the pieces away.

“You… think I’m weird?”

Everyone in all the worlds probably knew Eraqus was weird. Xehanort lifted his head to tell the other boy as much—and froze.

Eraqus looked genuinely hurt.

Eraqus, who was always smiling, who reacted to each loss with a cheerful request for a rematch, who seemed delighted by Xehanort’s way of forcing his victory in their latest game, looked like he was about to cry.

Xehanort was not particularly good at reassuring people. Or comforting people. Or doing pretty much anything with people that didn’t involve beating them at chess or with a Keyblade. If Eraqus started crying, he wasn’t sure what he could do, except perhaps flee the room.

And if it meant an end to their chess matches… Suddenly the prospect of _not_ meeting with Eraqus each day felt so much worse than enduring these minute-by-minute rule changes, Xehanort couldn’t believe he’d been annoyed with him over it.

So he reached out and gingerly patted the other boy’s shoulder. “I like weird things.”

Oh, great. Smooth, Xehanort, very smooth. He was eloquent enough while giving a speech, but when he tried to reassure someone, _that_ was the best he could come up with?

He managed another awkward pat. “Why don’t we play again?”

And he’d just won the Least Comforting Person in the World award, if such a thing existed.

But Eraqus’s gaze brightened. “You really want to?”

“Yeah, of course.” Xehanort avoided his gaze. “I like playing chess with you.”

Without warning, Eraqus flung himself across the distance between them and hugged him. “You’re a good friend,” he said, while Xehanort held very still and tried not to panic at this unexpected show of affection. At last, he let go. “I’ll set up the board.”

“Sure.”

Once all of the pieces were lined up again, Eraqus met his gaze and smiled.

Almost against his will, Xehanort smiled back.

At his… friend.

He settled down to play and shook his head. Whatever rules Eraqus made up this time, the game would certainly be fun.

**Author's Note:**

> This story started with a joke.
> 
> When the Kingdom Hearts 3 trailer showed Eraqus's king surrounded by Xehanort's pieces, it prompted jokes that he didn't actually know how to play chess. Then when the next trailer showed him respond to Xehanort's "Checkmate" by picking up his piece to make another move, the jokes increased.
> 
> His winning strategy in Kingdom Hearts 3 led to people joking that he cheated, and when he pulled out the new pieces at the end, I cracked up laughing and said, "Xehanort literally has no idea what might happen whenever he sits down to play chess with Eraqus."
> 
> The mental image of Eraqus just constantly inventing rules and pulling out new chess pieces from his pockets amused me so much, it became a whole little story. I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
